


The Devil You Know

by thingcalledlove



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brio - Freeform, Dark, F/M, Post Season 2, So Wrong It's Right, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 16:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingcalledlove/pseuds/thingcalledlove
Summary: Post Season 2 Finale:Beth thought she was in the clear. She was wrong.





	The Devil You Know

**Author's Note:**

> I like to show up every few months, post a fic and peace out.

Rain pelted against the windows as the sky beyond lit up a blindingly white colour. The silence was followed by thunder so loud, Beth swore she felt the floor beneath her shake.

Perhaps the bathtub wasn’t the safest of places to be lounging around in during such a severe thunderstorm, but the kids were away with Dean, and she had wanted to take advantage of the alone time.

She took another sip of bourbon from the flask resting on the edge of the tub. She allowed herself to sink in a little deeper into the hot water and close her eyes. She was thankful to have the sound of the rain and thunder to drown out her thoughts. There were times when her thoughts would consume her and the guilt that she neatly stored in a locked compartment of her mind would seep out against her best efforts. Those were the dark times, when she would fight those memories back into their place, never focusing on them too long or acknowledging their validity. Beth wasn’t sure she could come back from that, so she tried not to face them head on. One day she would. Just…not yet.

She reached out for the flask yet again, hoping to intensify the buzz she was riding on. Her fingers hit the porcelain where the flask should have been. She continued to search for it blindly before cracking her eyes open for a more thorough search of her surroundings.

For a moment her heart stopped. Then it started beating so frantically that she was certain that she was about to die.

It probably wasn’t far from the truth, as the devil himself stood leaning against her sink in a pair of jeans and a black button up. A gun rested snuggly in the waistband of his jeans.

How long had he been there? Watching her?

Beth struggled to comprehend the truth of what was standing before her. He was supposed to be dead. Rio was supposed to be dead. She must have blurted out as much because the corner of his lip rose in amusement.

“I’ll give it to you, mama, I didn’t think you had the balls.”

His voice was low and rumbly, and appeared to have the same effect on her that it always had. She realized her sudden state of undress and vulnerability, hidden by a thin layer of bubbles and cellphone out in the other room. There was absolutely nothing she could do.

“So, what are you waiting for?” Beth asked, proud of the way her voice didn’t waver when all she wanted to do was to cry in hopelessness. “Just do it. Take your revenge.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Rio grumbled with a dark chuckle, “I’ll get that in time.”

Beth fisted her hands in the water, unable to respond. Her eyes snagged over a busted lip he hadn’t been supporting on the night that she…

She had been lied to. Rio wasn’t gone and she wasn’t free. Turner had betrayed her, most likely, if the cops shows on TV were right, to turn Rio into an asset. There was no other explanation for what she was seeing before her. She had bolted when Turner had told her to and accepted his confirmation of Rio’s death. She was so _stupid._

Rio was valuable. He would never face the same consequences that she would. Beth would rot in jail for crimes because she did them out of necessity. There was nothing law enforcement could gain from that.

Rio on the other hand, he was smart and calculating and he played his part phenomenally. He ran shit in Michigan and most likely some of the neighboring states, but he also had information on people much higher on the totem pole than him. It was probably why he stayed where he was, when clearly, he had the brains and force to rise up the ranks with relative ease.

She noticed his eyes on her, and he appeared to be reading her thoughts, because as soon as she made her realization, he smirked a devious smile.

“You get it now?”

He took a few lazy steps in her direction, closing the gap and then sank down on his knees beside the tub. She didn’t dare move.

“You wanna be the Boss Bitch so bad,” Rio mused, practically in her ear in his gravel filled voice, “but you made a fatal error, didn’t you?”

She turned to face him, their noses inches apart as their eyes locked. He kept his emotions hidden, but Beth could still feel the fury radiating out of him.

He rummaged with something in his pocket before pulling out a small velvet box. It was bigger than a ring box but not considerably so. He held the closed box up, setting it on the lip of the tub. He nodded towards it, indicating his intent.

“Maybe this is just the reminder you need.”

Beth pulled a shaky hand out of the water and reached to pick up the box. It was heavier than she had expected. With her other wet hand, she snapped it open.

Two deformed bullets stared back at her.

“Next time you put a bullet in someone,” Rio drawled from beside her, “stick around to make sure it stays there.”

He took the box from her unmoving hand and carefully pulled the bullets out. They had been strung onto a delicate chain. He tossed the empty box aside and unclasped the hook.

“Lean forward,” he demanded.

Beth complied without meaning to.

She could feel his stubble again her face as he clasped the chain around her neck and let it drop. She felt the weight around her neck as the bullets sunk into the water below.

Beth tilted her head slightly in his direction. She could feel the softness of lips pressed against her skin for the briefest of moments before he pulled away. He didn’t go far, just a few inches of space between their faces. He was close enough that she could see a slight tick in his jaw, the only visible sign that he was a hairsbreadth away from losing control. She shuddered involuntarily. Nothing good would come from that. Not when Rio oozed such darkness.

“There were three,” Beth said, feeling a hell of a lot braver than she felt. But the curiosity had gotten the best of her in the moment. “I shot you three times. Where’s the third bullet?”

Rio’s lips quirked upwards, and Beth could swear that for a fleeting moment he looked a bit proud of her, but it was gone before she truly got a chance to process it. He leaned away further and his fingers went up to the top-most button of his collared shirt. His fingers deftly undid the buttons until his shirt hung three quarters of the way open. He pushed the fabric away from his chest, showing off three slowly healing bullet hole scattered across his torso and a single bullet hanging from a chain not unlike her own that rested again a pinkish wound just a fraction of an inch from his heart.

“I decided to keep it,” he replied darkly, “As a reminder of my own failures.”

Beth couldn’t pull her eyes away from living proof of the person she had become. She tried to kill a man. She was proud of herself when she thought she had. The same man that she had shared a bed with multiple times. The same man that gave her the means to really succeed in her life of crime.

“The biggest of which,” Rio continued, “Was trusting you.”

The words were like a slap in the face. Beth could feel the sting radiate through her. She could lie to herself and her friends all she wanted, but deep down, she knew she betrayed him. He had given her the keys to his kingdom, and in return, she shot him. Point blank.

“I won’t be making that same mistake twice.” His voice was hard as stone. He stood up slowly, buttoning his shirt up as he went, carefully tucking the bullet back out of sight, but clearly never out of mind.

He glanced over at the sink, and she wondered if he was also thinking about the time that he had her bent over another one just like it, a strong grip on her throat as he slammed into her from behind, over and over again giving her an experience she hadn’t realized she craved until it had happened.

The amount of hardcore porn she had consumed after that incident had been alarming to both herself and Dean when he stumbled across it one morning on her Ipad. It didn’t help that the actor had look very suspiciously like Rio. It didn’t help that in the months since, she had sought out meaningless sex with tattooed Latino men, but never getting the same high she got with Rio.

He looked at her knowingly, pulling her out of her revive. He looked through her, as if he had known exactly what she had been getting up to since his “death” five months ago.

“I could kill you now,” he mused, “But that wouldn’t be much fun.”

He pulled out his gun and examined it lazily. “I’m going to kill you, Elizabeth. I’m going to stand there and watch you die”

He looked directly at her as he put the gun back into his waistband, “But not today.” 

It was a promise. That much she could tell.

He was gone in a blink, and Beth finally allowed herself to breathe.

She wasn’t afraid. She was almost…relieved.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I know it's not "brio in love", but it felt right and I love writing a darker Rio. Let me know what you thought! I love getting feedback.


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